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11 comments

I’m not sure about this theory. Guys I know who use hook-up sites have plenty of access to gay bars too. Plus a selection of public parks where cruising goes on more or less in the open. I live in probably the safest place in the world for gay men (the SF Bay Area) where being out is probably as comfortable as it can be within our larger world realities, and still, cruising sites are popular here.

I thought the most telling part of the article was this: “But he has also said he was celibate from 1979 to 1995.” Perhaps his perspective has more to do with his own discomfort around sexuality than anything else?

Are there lesbian cruising sites? They have access to bars, but are subject to pressures of the closet too.

I don’t agree with Frye, but I don’t think the closet-theory works either or else lesbians would have more hook-up sites. I do believe men have a different relation to their sexuality than women – but this difference is not primarily in levels of desire.

If pushed, I might describe the difference as “Men – at this time, in this society – are more willing to treat their sex drive as an itch that needs to be scratched.”

If I can substitute in ‘more risk-averse’ for ‘pickier’, that sounds about right. Cruising for public sex sounds prohibitively dangerous, to the point where I can’t reliably evaluate whether it might sound like an attractive idea if it weren’t prohibitively dangerous.

Now, it’s dangerous for gay men too, of course, and they (or at least some) do it anyway. But I don’t think you can reliably say that the difference is a higher level of interest in sex as opposed to a lower level of fear of violence.

Path dependence, people. Homosexual acts used to be illegal. So anonymous sex was self-protective. Anonymous sex has its own pleasures (see Erica Jong on the zipless fuck) but for heterosexuals was difficult to reach. Homosexuals, having been forced to it earlier, kept it up even after other options became available.

Nothing for “Domestic men”?.. and these
“singles”… what is it about them? Is no gender required, where foreign men are concerned? (Visions of rectangular American cheese slices in the their individual cellophane envelopes, waiting for the elusive foreign partner… french bread, perhaps, w/ a little gray poupon…) ^..^